University – Edinburgh College of Art
Qualification – BA(Hons) Illustration
Job hunting experience – I graduated the previous year and I was very fortunate to be offered an internship in Hong Kong. I went on to live and work in Hong Kong for five months, which was an amazing cultural insight! I worked for corporate brand agency Sedgwick Richardson where I began to build on my work experience and digital design skills. After my internship I continued to work freelance for a product design company. After returning back to Scotland, I was offered a paid internship with FEAST through the AAI programme.
Roles and responsibilities – My role as a marketing and communications intern involved being versatile within a range of responsibilities and being able to work independently. I managed a range of design projects for FEAST, in particular mainly branding work for digital and print, and designing food packaging and labels. The food packaging project was in particular my favourite, as I organised it as an illustration collage project with the Fet Lor Youth Group. The illustrations that the kids created from the workshop, I designed into a pattern to use for the food packaging and part of the brand identity for FEAST.
My other responsibilities involved social media campaign management, print and digital marketing design. The overall work experience developed my confidence and skills in communication, marketing, and also gave me a great insight into entrepreneurial culture and community work.
Where are you now? – I now work as a full time freelancer! I think starting off from the Adopt an Intern programme, and also working within a start up such as FEAST gave me a clear indication that I prefer to have a group of clients who I can work between. I am now focusing on starting my own creative agency business doing branding & graphic design, digital marketing consultancy work for independent businesses within a variety of sectors.
I still continue to do illustration work from time to time under my own name. I also manage Reset Press, a bespoke risograph print press within my studio. My clients since FEAST include; Tuk Tuk (Edinburgh), Uncover Lab, Kalopsia, Hendersons of Edinburgh, The Red Bus, Glasgow Short Film Festival, The Skinny, and Little White Lies magazine.
I have had an excellent experience with Adopt an Intern and very pleased with the internship they offered and hope to collaborate again with them in future!
Laura Griffin
AAI Alumni
Marketing and Communications Intern with FEAST
Connect with Laura on LinkedIn
